‘Supersizing’ the College Classroom:
How One Instructor Teaches 2,670 Students

John Boyer teaches
a megaclass in current
events at Virginia
Tech in person—and
holds online office
hours (above) using
Ustream.

BLACkSBURG, VA.IN October, Myanmar’s pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu kyi, got a quirky request on You Tube. A hyperactive instructor in a plaid jacket posted a video inviting her to do a Skype interview ith his “World Regions” geography class at Virginia Tech. Ms. Suu kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate often compared toNelson Mandela, might have ignored this plea were it not for how thevideo ended. The camera pivoted from the instructor, John Boyer, toan auditorium filled with some 3,000 students. They leapt from theirseats, blew noisemakers, and chanted her name as if the Hokies hadscored a touchdown.It worked. On December 5, Ms. Suu kyi, who last month wonelection to Parliament after spending much of the past two decadesin detention, took questions from Mr. Boyer’s students via Skype. “Icried a little bit,” says Alex Depew, a senior. “I’m not gonna lie.”

By MARC PARRY

The moment marked the biggest coup yet in Mr. Boyer’s experiment
with supersizing the classroom. Conventional wisdom deems smaller
classes superior. Mr. Boyer, a self-described “Podunk instructor,” calls
that “poppycock.” He’s exploring how technology can help engage
students in face-to-face courses that enroll from 600 to nearly 3,000
students.

It’s a timely project that may suggest tips for others. In a recentsurvey of financial conditions at state universities, 56 percent of re-spondents said that budget constraints were causing them to collapseKYLE GREEN FOR THE CHRONICLEContinued on Page B10sections into fewer, larger classes, according to the Association of Pub-lic and Land-Grant Universities. At Virginia Tech, about two dozenclasses exceed 300 students.“They’re not going anywhere,” says Peter E. Doolittle, director ofVirginia Tech’s Center for Instructional Development and EducationalResearch. “We’re better off learning how to teach well in large classes,rather than trying to avoid them.”Boyer describes his course as an “Intro to the Planet” that brings“the average completely uninformed American” up to speed on worldissues. His approach? Decentralize the rigid class format by recreat-ing assessment as a gamelike system in which students earn points forcompleting assignments of their choosing from many options (1,050points earns an A, and no tasks, not even exams, are required). Saturatestudents with Facebook and Twitter updates (some online pop quizzesare announced only on social media). keep the conversation going withonline office hours.And snag big-name visitors by turning the enormous class into adigital hive that swarms them with requests. Other recent guests haveincluded Emilio Estevez and Martin Sheen, whose recent movie fo-cuses on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route in Spain, and JasonRussell, creator of “kony 2012,” a viral video about the brutal Ugandanrebel leader Joseph kony.“I’m not sure any of these things would have occurred without a classB8 THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION • THE DIGITAL CAMPUSMAY 4, 2012